For the budget-conscious HTPC storage mavens, here is a good set of plans for building one's own NAS mega-storage pod:Backblaze, one of the last remaining reasonably-priced cloud-based backup solutions, has revealed how it provides storage so cheaply: instead of using commercial hard drive enclosures, Backblaze makes its own. Last year it showed us the first Backblaze Storage Pod — 67TB for a build price of $7,867 — and now it has developed the Storage Pod 2.0, which uses Hitachi’s new 3TB drives to create a 135TB RAID6 storage array for just $7,384.http://www.extremetech.com/computing/90634-how-to-build-your-own-135tb-raid6-storage-pod-for-7384

USD of course, so a bit cheaper for Canadians these days. Although the company openly shares it's hardware designs it does not share it's proprietary software, but apparently FreeNAS works just great on it.

Interesting design but still not practical for DIY due to the special case requirements. It is easy to build DIY servers for very reasonable prices these days. Cases that hold 10x3.5" drives are not difficult to find and some only cost $100-$200 plus P/S. That can easily be extended to 14x3.5" drives with 5.25" drive bay adapters. (These cases are not hot swap but that's overrated for SOHO environments.) Using 3GB drives, a 42TB (39TB usable with RAID5 or 36TB with RAID6) can be built for about $2000. An 18TB (15TB usable) 'mini-server' can be built for about $1000. See this thread (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=140260&highlight=10tb+server) to see how I built a small 12TB (10TB usable) server using 2TB drives.